Musings on books and the book business by an opinionated, somewhat cynical, yet optimistic bookseller.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Notes from the Christmas Front

The Misunderstood Jew?Christmas is just three weeks away and Jesus is nowhere to be found on the retail floor. Sure, it's all very friendly and polite at this point. The clerks are still energetic and the customers are in high spirits because they are finding almost everything they want. Still, even though a Christian spirt of brotherhood prevails, I wonder what any of this shopping mania has to do with a religious holiday.In the past, I would have rolled my eyes at the thought of a retail Jesus, but I just spent four days among theologians, seminary students, and professors at the Academy of American Religion and Society of Biblical Literature Annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Trust me, there is a lot of money to be made in selling Jesus. I don't mean the kitsch Christ or the politically co-opted savior. I'm talking about the serious pursuit of trying to decipher Jesus' teachings and his times.

I worked in the HarperSanFrancisco booth for the event, and there was a fully stocked section of Jesus books. One was Ben Witherington's What Have They Done to Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History -- Why We can Trust the Bible. Of course, Witherington's HarperSanFrancisco stable mate, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (by Bart Ehrman), might prove a useful retort, making the point that putting our faith in the veracity of the bible might not be a great idea.

We also sold Marcus Borg's new biography of Christ, if you can call any book about Jesus a true biography, titled Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary. But the surprise hit of the meeting for us was The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine. It would be an exaggeration to say there was a Harry Potter-like excitment around these books, but The Misunderstood Jew did acheive a level a devotion usually reserved for Lemony Snickett or Kurt Vonnegutt.

When I returned to the store, I can honestly say that with the possible exception of Misquoting Jesus, which came out last year and was helped immensely by Ehrman's humorous but informative appearance on the Daily Show, these books didn't even register a blip on the consciousness of our customers. Yes, it is true that Buddhism seems to be Boulder's dominant religion, at least as far a book buying is concerned, but I know there also is a large Christian community here. My wife has shepherded me into a few different churches, and they are always packed during the holidays. By the way, my advice for people getting dragged to church a couple of times a year is to get the person dragging you to opt for Palm Sunday over Easter Sunday. It's much less crowded and the sermon is less predictable.

The one thing in short supply at the AAR/SBL Annual Meeting seemed to be books on Satan. I had one customer in Washington ask me if there were any HarperSanFrancisco books on Satan's evil. I jokingly replied, "No, but we've got a few on the good Satan." Not getting the joke, he perked up and asked me where they were. Now, a book on the positive qualities of the Devil might be something we can sell at both next year's AAR/SBL show as well as in the store as a fun little Christmas gift.

What are the Big Books?The other day I was lamenting the fact that it was now December and it was impossible to tell what books were really going to take off during the holiday season. One of my assistants, who has worked on and off with me for 10 years, told me I say the same thing at the same time every year. Maybe so. But in a year that seemed so loaded with big fall titles, it seems distressing that none of them have captured the public's imagination.

I thought we'd be selling Charles Frazier's 13 Moons like crazy by now. Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope is strong, but it's no Marley and Me. In fact, Marley and Me, which has been re-issued in a slow-moving, fancy illustrated edition, is certainly no Marley and Me. Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, is selling steadily, but it's hard to believe it will come close to equalling his much more universal bestseller from last year, Our Endangered Values.

I'm personally keeping my fingers crossed for Annie Liebovitz's A Photographers Life 1990-2005 because it's an absolutely magnificent book by an orginal artist that deserves widespread distribution and is truly a bargain for $75. I would also like to see Bill Bryson's memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, take off because the more of Bryson's humor that there is out in the world, the better off we will all be.

What's OutThere are a few books that we, and everybody else from what I can tell, are having a difficult time keeping in stock. A few of them, oddly enough, are titles that if not anti-religious are at least irreligious. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins finally came back in after a hiatus of a couple of weeks. Dawkins, a heralded Oxford scientist, takes aim at most religions in a fairly scornful manner that makes Sam Harris' two books Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith seem fairly tolerant of religious views. Surprisingly, all three are selling so well that we are having trouble stocking them. Interesting presents to put under the tree.

This year's Man Booker prizewinner, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, has been out of stock with the publisher, Grove Press, since it won the award. We snagged enough copies for it to make our bestseller list last month, but now we are just waiting for the reprint. While I can forgive Grove Press for coming up short on Desai's surprise hit, I find it hard to feel warm toward McSweeney's for running out of Dave Eggers' What is the What. McSweeney's puts out wonderful books, but they don't seem to have a clue about the business of publishing. How can you run out of Eggers' book in less than four weeks? Isn't this their cash cow? On the children's side, the delightful picture book The Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes is gone until after Christmas. Oh well, there's always Doctor Seuss.

Favorite 21st Century Novels

Top 10The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. 2000.White Teeth by Zadie Smith. 2000.Atonement by Ian McEwan. 2002.Any Human Heart by William Boyd. 2003.The Known World by Edward P. Jones. 2003.Snow by Orhan Pamuk. 2004.On Beauty by Zadie Smith. 2005.Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. 2006.The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. 2007.Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. 2007.

Other FavoritesThe Inventory by Gila Lustiger. 2000.The Human Stain by Philip Roth. 2000.Erasure by Percival Everett. 2001.Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. 2001.Spies by Michael Frayn. 2002.The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. 2002.Nowhere Man by Aleksandar Hemon. 2002.Roscoe by William Kennedy. 2002.American Woman by Susan Choi. 2003The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. 2003.Sabbath Creek by Judson Mitcham. 2004.The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. 2004.The In Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji. 2004.The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud. 2006.Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. 2006.After This by Alice McDermott. 2006.Echo Maker by Richard Powers. 2006.On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. 2007.Peace by Richard Bausch. 2008.Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. 2008.Border Songs by Jim Lynch. 2009.Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem. 2009.Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. 2009.Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. 2009.All Other Nights by Dara Horn. 2009.

My Favorite New Books

My Abandonment by Peter Rock. A girl and her father live off the land in Portland's Forest Park in this novel that is based on a true story. Told through the eyes of the young girl, it's a poetic work revealing our connection to the natural world.True Confections by Katharine Weber. Zip's Candy is the setting for this outstanding satire. Alice, who turns out to be an unreliable narrator, details the company's history and her own place in its scandalous past.New World Monkeys by Nancy Mauro. The death of a boar, a pervert trying to perfect his craft, and the unearthing of the bones of a murder victim are just a few of the plot elements in this comic debut.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Shortly after World War II, a young Irish girl is forced by her family to emigrate to Brooklyn. Cut off from all that she knows she finds love at Dodgers games and Coney Island in this subtle but suspenseful novel. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Phillippe Petit's remarkable 1974 tight-rope walk between the World Trade Center towers is the jumping off point (pun intended) of this novel of love, loss and beautiful convergences in a gritty New York City.

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem. Nothing is as it seems in this brilliant bizarre novel set in an almost recognizable New York City. The revelations at the end left me reeling although I knew that surprises were lurking. Another novel with shades of Saul Bellow. Border Songs by Jim Lynch. Hilarious novel about a strange border agent on the Canadian border. Lynch effortlessly tells the story from several points of view including the criminal, the cops and everyone in between.

The Signal by Ron Carlson. An adventure and a love story set in the pristine mountains of Wyoming. A sense of both hope and foreboding hangs over the sparse narrative.

Wanting by Richard Flanagan. This historical novel featuring both Charles Dickens and the explorer John Franklin is really a meditation on desire and what was thought to separate the civilized from the barbarians.

Woodsburner by John Pipkin. Henry David Thoreau burned down the Concord Woods before he wrote Walden. This novel explores that incident from several different perspectives, including a bookseller who is forced to sell porn to stay in business.

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. A British Bellow with a West Indian cricket fiend cast as a Chicago University Professor. Humboldt plays cricket.Chicagoby Alaa Al Aswany. Egyptian students and their professors try to navigate America in this magnificent novel set in the heart of contemporary Chicago.

Gossip of the Starlings by Nina de Gramont. A haunting novel about the seductive power of friendship.

Wifeshoppingby Steven Wingate. Thirteen great short stories of men sabotaging their relationships.